


Double Kiss

by rinwins



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol, Alien Gender/Sexuality, F/M, Hand Jobs, Intermission (Homestuck), Leprechaun Romance, Mentioned Snowman/Spades Slick, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 12:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16118015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinwins/pseuds/rinwins
Summary: ‘Nine whole charms and there ain’t a single one that covers what you think of Snowman.’ - Voidbooze, dubious architecture, anatomical logistics, alien gender concepts, two-steps on rooftops, and yeah, some kissin’.





	Double Kiss

You’re setting up for the raid tomorrow. It's a complicated one. The layout has you changing all the clocks to offset intervals of eleven minutes, gassing up the getaway car plus two decoys, hanging up paintings to hide the secret doors the Doc just had put in, and, for some reason, moving the big stickball table in front of the mansion’s front door. Fin assures you this part is going to be necessary. And by necessary, you think he maybe means hilarious.

It had better be at least one of those things, because the table’s goddamn heavy. You and Matchsticks manhandle it into the front hall with Clover scampering around calling out directions. You’re just putting it down to rest before the final push when you spot a flicker of black at the side door.

Snowman. Making the little sideways nod with her head that’s universally acknowledged to mean ‘come over here a sec’.

Hang on, you tell the guys, better go see what that’s about.

You amble over. Behind you Clover hops up and sits on the edge of the table, swinging his feet real playful like, and Matchsticks leans over next to him. Whatever. Pot-of-gold stuff, that ain’t your charm. It also ain’t your business.

You say to Snowman, what does she want.

She says ditch the rest of the setup and meet her on the roof in five. You say why? She says, because she hates drinking alone.

Technically you don’t take orders from her, even though she’s got some kind of direct line to the Doc you don’t, but to be fair she doesn’t take orders from you either. You mostly leave each other alone, and at some point when the action happens she shows up for not much apparent reason and leaves the same way. 

You haven’t heard anything about the roof in tomorrow’s plan. 

You think…

You think she might have just made a joke?

Sure, you say, you’re in. She says bring something strong, and then she does a fast fade.

Huh.

These other two lugs ain't paid that exchange any attention at all. You tell them quit flirting and get some work done, Clover we don't need directions to the front door, we can see it just fine, why don't you flip Quarters in here so he can pull his weight for once. You say you gotta go see to something.

You beat feet before anybody can backtalk. Five minutes ain't much time around here. 

-

You don’t go up to the roof much. It’s all turrets and haphazard levels and bits of iron railing, and those pieces where the top of the walls are cut out like a jigsaw, something with a C you think they’re called? You’re smart but you ain’t an architect. It’s a mess up there, layout wise, is your point. 

It’s a minute before you even see her. Down in the mansion she tends to stick out. Up here, in the shadows and the night sky, she blends right in. You spot her by the flash of green in her coat, over by a bit of south facing wall, sitting comfortably in one of the god damnit what are those C things. 

Crenellations, you say as you get to her.

She says, what?

You say never mind. Real smooth, Crowbar. Maybe you can recover this. You lean next to her in the crenellation and produce a flask from your breast pocket. You also produce a little disc that, when you give it a twist, pops up into a little cup. Itchy stole it from somebody on a heist, and you promptly stole it from Itchy. Leader’s prerogative. You pour out some whiskey into the little cup and offer it to Snowman.

She says thanks but she brought her own.

It isn’t a flask she has. It’s a clear decanter, with a stopper and everything, half full of a thick black liquor. It looks like distilled void and smells like licorice and ozone. No glass. She takes a pull straight from the bottle.

What is it, you say.

She shrugs. No idea. She lifted it from the Doc’s apartment. What he keeps it for she doesn’t know, since he literally can’t drink, but it’s the only thing that has any effect. You guess when the whole universe is in your blood you need a strong sauce. 

You say maybe the Doc keeps it for her to steal. Y’know, out of the kindness of his heart.

She shoots you a look. You look deadpan back at her. 

You hold up your cup to her in a toast.

To kindnesses, she says, just as deadpan, and lifts the decanter.

You both drink.

-

From the south side of the mansion’s roof you can see Midnight City in the distance. Sort of the distance. The city’s started to sprawl its arms out, reaching across the desert toward you with steel fingers and power-line tendons. It ain’t caught you up yet but it might one of these years. It’s a fast growing thing, this city.

Somewhere in there in its depths is the Midnight Crew. They’ve got a hideout, at least one, which you ain’t found yet. Your campaign against them has been waged in casino shootouts and back alley scuffles, bank heists and garage standoffs. 

And tomorrow they’ll hit the mansion and do their damnedest to kill you. Again.

As much screwing around with timelines as your gang does, getting offed don’t necessarily stick. Doesn’t make it any more fun, and of course Scratch doesn’t ever warn you, not that you expect much help from the guy, but at least you know if any of you bites it you’ll probably almost certainly get back up. Any of you, that is, except Snowman. If she goes down she takes the whole shebang with her.

So what’s in it for her, you ask her.

She says have you ever heard of a place called Derse. You shrug. The Doc’s mentioned it maybe. Another city? A kingdom, she says, and she doesn’t take her eyes off the skyline. It was a kingdom the size of a planet, and she ruled it. 

Until she was dethroned, she says, and banished. Exiled here to this desert. Wasn’t any city here yet, or any other damn thing but crashed meteors and a big green moon hanging up in the sky like an insult.

She says do you know who got her exiled.

You don’t say anything. That ain’t the kind of question that wants an answer.

Back then he was called Jack Noir, she says. But down here in the desert we all take different names. These days he goes by Spades Slick.

Well. That explains more than it doesn't. 

You don't say that out loud though. 

She takes a stiff belt of the black stuff. You can smell the sting in it, but she doesn't so much as wince. She leans close to you. She wants you to do something for her, she says. 

Funny how she don't give off body heat. Chill like empty space. You've never been close enough to notice it before. 

She says she wants you to keep Slick alive. 

Alive, you say, but the Doc said-

She knows what the Doc said. The Doc ain't in possession of all the facts. Spades Slick, she says, is hers. 

Sure. Murderous gangster who'd kill you soon as look at you, who your immediate superior just told you to take special care to dispose of, keep him alive instead. But the way Snowman is looking at you, well, you see how she used to be a queen. And you can't think how anybody, not even Spades Slick, could have dethroned her. 

So you just nod. 

It's going to be a hell of a raid.

-

Somehow it becomes a habit. Sometimes the night before a raid, sometimes when you get back from a skirmish bruised and bloody and waiting your turn for Stitch to fix you up, sometimes for no occasion at all. But always up on the roof. Turns out nobody else goes up there. Plus, you think, she likes to keep one eye on the city. There’s a signal she develops, a particular wink she shoots you and she holds up a couple fingers to tell you when. 

You feel a little lapdog about it sometimes. Ain’t even the Doc can summon you the way she does these days, well he can, but he’s the boss or at least the boss’s mouthpiece and you don’t even consider giving Snowman the kinda lip you give Scratch some days. 

But she’s good drinking company, and well, you can take the woman off the throne, yadda yadda.

One night you maybe have a little too much whiskey for how much blood you lost that mission, and you lean in to kiss her.

She leans back all sudden. God damnit, Crowbar. Shoulda known you can’t rush a class act. 

You apologize and start to get up out of the crenellation. Boy you ain’t ever forgetting that word again. 

No wait, she says, sit back down, that ain’t it.

You are so confused.

She says she ain’t averse to the proposition, but she thought you were all, uh…

Oh, you say. Yeah you are all uh. At least biologically.

She gives you a capital-L Look but she don’t say nothin’. You try to think how to explain this. It’s less that you ain’t into women, you say, and more you never had the concept of women. The old boss, the one she never met direct, he called you men, but all leprechauns is the same downstairs so you never really understood the gender distinction. And the stuff the boss used to say about “females”, and you make sure to drop the quote marks around the word, well it don’t bear repeating in polite company.

She says so is she the first woman you met?

First and only, you say. When the Doc brought her on you didn’t begin to know what to expect.

Been a while since then, she says. What do you think now?

You look in her eyes and see the white-hot hearts of distant stars. Nine whole charms and there ain’t a single one that covers what you think of Snowman.

You’re something else, you tell her.

This time, when you lean in, she meets you halfway.

-

This time you skip waiting for her to summon you and just go look for her. You expect it to be tricky. But instead you find her in the first place you look, namely, the lounge, relaxing on a long kinda sofa you think might be called a chaise? Usually when folks say ‘staring into space’ it’s a figure of speech but in her case you suspect it might be very literal.

Accordingly, she looks pretty surprised when you stroll into her line of view. She says can she help you with something?

You ask her, does she dance?

Not the way you boys dance, she says, no. But bring up something to spin a record on and she’ll teach you one she knows. Not now, she says. Tonight. The usual spot.

And that’s how you find yourself lugging the victrola from the game room up through the service hatch onto the roof, trailing a ridiculous length of extension cord through the hallways behind you. This is completely absurd but you guess it was kind of your idea, so you got nobody to blame but yourself.

She’s already on the roof when you get up there. She has a record in a sleeve, a decanter of void liquor, and a tiny, tiny glass.

She pours. Ain’t more than a sip in there. You say are we going easy tonight?

No, the bottle’s for her, she says. She holds up the tiny glass. She says this is for you.

You put the record on. It’s slow scratchy piano, steady bass, clarinet cry. Simple. Ain’t nobody going to cut loose to this number. 

She passes you the glass. No more than a sip. It’s cool and surprisingly heavy and it still smells like licorice. She says, do you trust her.

Hell no you don’t. You don’t trust anybody, it’s kind of your job. But what’s the alternative, turn around and leave?

You take a breath and you take the shot.

Everything fades but her and the stars. You ain’t given to metaphor, and that isn’t one. As the liquor slides chilly down your throat the mansion below you goes hazy, and so does the horizon and the city sprawling on it, the victrola, the turrets, the damn crenellations. You ain’t dizzy, per se, it’s just a little difficult finding your footing when there’s a total of two solid things in the universe and neither of them is a floor.

If you concentrate you can feel the roof under your feet. Okay, fine. As long as you don’t look down. She holds out her arms and you step into them.

She leads, her arm around your waist, her left foot forward, your right foot back. The dance is a measured one and three-four, box step, she turns you gently. It’s simple like the music. You pick it up fast. She holds you in close to her and lengthens the step, turning you around the roof, and you’re glad she’s leading because you can’t actually see where the edges are. As far as you’re concerned you’re dancing in the depths of space.

Somewhere the tune changes. There’s more bass in it now, the clarinet don’t cry so hard. You shorten the step again, feet parallel, revolving almost on the spot. 

She had your hand in hers, but she lets it go, so she can brush her fingers under your jaw. So soft, she says real quiet. The first time you touched hands you were expecting the smooth shell of carapace, the chill you already knew came off her. She hadn’t been expecting your skin to feel like it did. You gotta give her credit, she don’t bother trying to act like it ain’t a novelty.

She traces a line down your neck, to your collar, undoes the top button. She could take you apart, she says. Her fingertip is sharp.

You catch her hand in yours. Your step doesn’t falter. Easy with that, you tell her, she ain’t the one who’ll have to explain it to Stitch later.

You’re different, she says. She forgets sometimes. You think about asking different from who, but you don’t, because you know who she means. And since you are different you think probably she doesn’t really want to take you apart. 

You think.

She’s looking at you intently. The music’s still playing but you’re standing still now. She studies your face, her hand in yours, and the stars are all around you.

Show me, she says.

-

She takes you back down to her rooms that night. She’s got a suite to herself, it turns out, all the way up on the top floor. You’ve never been in there. You think probably no one has. 

The effects of the liquor fade some once you get four walls around you, not all the way, but some. Enough. You’ve got it together enough to undo the buttons on that starry coat she wears, while she does the same to yours. You undress each other carefully. In your line of work you get used to taking fabric serious.

When you’re done, she looks at you. You look at her.

She doesn’t know what she expected, she says.

You say you neither, come to that, and you both laugh. After that it ain’t so strange.

She’s got a bed, ain’t a lavish affair but it sure feels luxurious enough. You weren’t sure if she even sleeps. She says how do we work this, and you say you both got hands, don’t you? She laughs again- you don’t think you’ve ever heard her laugh twice in one night before- and she pulls you down on the bed with her and she says all right, tell her what to do.

So you do. She’s got cool hands, the same chill as the rest of her, which ought to feel strange but it just feels different. And she catches on fast. Pretty soon you ain’t got to give any more directions apart from the customary enthusiastic kind. 

And she keeps on touching you, after you’re done, while you wind down, just feeling your skin. She hoped you’d be this soft everywhere, you hear her say. You say you try not to disappoint. 

You say speaking of which, what about her? Unless you’re mistaken this kind of thing usually goes in turns.

She says not this time. She ain’t soft the way you are. Says she’s going to have to have some equipment made up for next time.

But, she says, if you want to watch how it goes…

You really hope she isn’t making a joke.

-

Turns out she does sleep. You both do, eventually. She curls up around you, chill on warmth, soft on smooth, and you drift off watching faint stars flicker under the surface of her shell.

-

God it’s the worst when Scratch sends out one of his narration-delivered communiques first thing in the damn morning. Gets in your head, in the literal way, which is the worst way. You always wake up disoriented, plus this time you’re somewhere unfamiliar and there’s chilly carapace touching your bare skin.

In the next second you remember. Snowman’s bed, with Snowman in it. And also, notably, you in it. You, and Snowman, in Snowman’s bed.

Okay, you’re on top of it now.

What is it, she says, since you’ve startled her awake too. Bad dream?

You say nah, just a call from the Doc. You settle back down into her hold. You’ll deal with it in a little bit, you say. It won’t kill him to wait for once.


End file.
